The piano was invented around the year 1700 by Bartolomeo Cristofori of Padua, Italy. Cristofori was an expert harpsichord maker employed by the Medici family in Florence. He developed the first piano, which he called "un cimbalo di cipresso di piano e forte" (a keyboard of cypress with soft and loud), later shortened to pianoforte and then simply piano. Cristofori's invention was revolutionary because it replaced the plucking mechanism of earlier keyboard instruments with hammers that could strike the strings with varying force, allowing for dynamic variation in volume, from soft to loud. The earliest known piano dates from around 1700, with surviving pianos made by Cristofori dating from the 1720s. The mechanism he designed allowed the hammer to strike the strings and then quickly rebound, which was a significant engineering achievement that defined the modern piano action. This innovation marked the piano as the first keyboard instrument capable of expressive volume control, unlike the harpsichord or clavichord that preceded it.